The annual chatter surrounding Bombay’s monsoons would be amusing if it weren’t so frightening. I have been thinking about it more than I usually do, given how wrong the predictions of poor rainfall were this year. It has been decades since I took official weather reports seriously, but 2024 was wider off the mark than usual. Everyone was asked to brace for drier weather until the city promptly drowned, and then drowned again. By the time thunderstorms occurred in mid-October, I prayed for climate change deniers to be stuck outdoors without an umbrella.

Scientists have been issuing warnings about Bombay for a while now. And by scientists, I mean people who have really studied science, not Entire Political Science graduates discussing how cloud formations occur. The warnings have a lot to do with how Bombay came into being, because we forget that it was once part of the sea. Remembering that crucial piece of information is difficult in a country that pays more attention to cricket than to history. So, for those still in denial, a reminder: seven islands were stitched together to create India’s financial capital, land was magically procured from the sea and, over time, residents convinced themselves that the water would stay away and forget to flow the way it used to.